In October 2005 the German Embassy provided a grant to TARA to conduct a rock art survey project in the Wajir and Moyale area of northern Kenya. The project was implemented by TARA with support from the National Museums of Kenya. This project consisted of two phases:

PHASE 1: RECONNAISSANCE
In November 2005 Mulu Muia, an archaeologist from the National Museums of Kenya, travelled north to Wajir / Moyale districts in order to follow up on unconfirmed reports of the existence of rock art in this area. This was of particular interest to both TARA and the National Museums since hitherto no rock art had been officially recorded in this part of Kenya. The closest areas where rock art had been recorded were at least 250 kms south of this area. Dr. Stanley Ambrose from the University of Illinois contributed a vehicle for this phase of the project.

PHASE 2: SURVEY Phase 2
consisted of a short visit by David Coulson, TARA Chairman, Mulu Muia from the National Museums and Tilman Hochmueller of the German Embassy. On the first day the group arrived by air at Moyale where they were met by Dr. Abdullahi Shongolo, an anthropologist based in this region who is working with the Max Planck Institute of Berlin.

Lesayu Hills
The first area visited by the group was the Lesayu Hills. The group drove through areas which had been severely ravaged by drought. Carcasses of cattle were widely scattered and the villages they visited in desperate need of water and emergency food. On arrival at Lesayu - a series of bare, sun-blackened granite hills - they visited a large rock shelter. This painting, which resembled a leaping horse, was situated around 3 to 4 metres above the floor of the shelter and in Coulson's opinion may in fact be a natural coloration of the rock which happens to resemble the shape of a horse. On the right hand site of the shelter in the alcove is what appears definitely to be quite a large stylised painting, probably of an antelope, which local people had interestingly not recognised as a painting.

The group then made contact with the Chief (Hussein) who took them to a nearby area of the hills close to a natural reservoir. The first thing that Hussein showed the group was a series of what appeared to be large black footprints on the rock. RockIn Coulson's opinion these marks are also almost certainly natural. The Chief explained that before the last big rains in the area (El Nino) he thought there had been more footprints visible. However the footprints were clearly well-known in the area and Coulson suspects that given more time it might be possible to find and record some oral legend associated with the prints. About 33 metres beyond the footprints on the other side of the boulder was a very interesting panel about 2 metres across featuring a small red fine-line giraffe painting, a faded yellow ochre finger-painting of a geometric design, possibly a shield and a faded red matrix-geometric painting. The red giraffe painting appeared to have been damaged by scratching, although not too seriously. Coulson and Muia together with Shongolo talked to the Chief about the importance of people understanding the value and frailty of this probably ancient heritage. The discovery of this giraffe painting is extremely interesting as the nearest other fine-line red painting so far recorded in East Africa is hundreds of kms to the south in northern Tanzania. The Tanzanian fine line paintings are some of the oldest in East Africa and may be 6,000-8,000 years.

Buna Area
The next target area which the group visited on Day 2 was at a village near Buna. Apparently carved into a rock below waist height at the edge of a probably very old village pathway leading to a well was what appeared to be a deep hoof-print of an equid (horse, zebra, ass etc.). Having heard about this from Muia beforehand, Coulson was expecting to find another "natural" formation but in this case in his opinion the hoof-print is in fact man-made. Although the Chief was himself unaware of any local stories or oral legend relating to the hoof print and although Muia had not been able to find anyone in the area who had knowledge of any oral legend it is probable that once, perhaps a long time ago, this hoof print (and perhaps others) was very well known and people may have travelled long distances to visit the site which could have been at that time regarded as sacred/special.

Significance of the results
Although in this first attempt to survey this region for rock art, and only 3 rock art sites have been identified, the findings strongly suggest that given more time and survey work, more sites will undoubtedly be found in this area. Indeed subsequent information from Dr. Shongolo, which TARA is presently analysing, indicate that more paintings have been located in the region of northern Kenya and southern Ethiopia. The presence of horse imagery in these paintings and engravings is also extremely interesting as they are the first to be recorded in East Africa. Discovery of these new sites in addition to other sites recorded in northern Kenya by TARA but so far not published or exhibited, should enable TARA and the NMK to stage an important new exhibition of rock art from northern Kenya.

Engravings and paintings of animal tracks (wild animals and domestic animals) are common throughout Africa but especially in north Africa. TARA has for example recorded hundreds of such images (lion pugmarks, gazelle tracks, porcupine tracks etc.) in the Sahara during the last 10 years.

Museum Exhibition
The findings of this survey will be included in forthcoming permanent exhibits at the Desert Museum (Loiyangalani) and the Wajir Museum.